


The Sicilian Defence

by HolRose



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Aziraphale's Bookshop (Good Omens), Chess, Light Angst, M/M, Scene: St James's Park 1862 (Good Omens)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-04
Updated: 2020-12-04
Packaged: 2021-03-10 05:48:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 499
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27869454
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HolRose/pseuds/HolRose
Summary: It is 1933, Aziraphale has been without his adversary and friend for 72 years, and he is not finding it easy. He receives a parcel at the bookshop and finds a note inside that gives him hope for the future.Written for the SOSH Discord server Guess The Author Prompt #9 'Game'
Relationships: Aziraphale & Crowley (Good Omens), Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 28
Kudos: 26
Collections: SOSH - Guess the Author #09 "Game"





	The Sicilian Defence

**Author's Note:**

> In the Sicilian Defence, Black is playing not just for equality, but for the advantage. (Chess Grandmaster, John Nunn). In chess, it is customary for white to take the first move.
> 
> I noticed what looks like a jade chess set in the photograph of Aziraphale relaxing in the bookshop looking happy with a glass of wine and a book on his knee. I like to think it was a gift from Crowley.

**Soho, 1933**

The package had been delivered by a cheery boy who had hefted it from his shoulder onto the bookshop floor, and accepted a shilling and a smile in thanks for his trouble. Now, Aziraphale unpacked the contents, unfolding each of the thirty-two pieces from the cloths that had cradled them safe during their journey. He placed them on the board that had been waiting, wrapped in linen, nestled at the bottom of the parcel. The shine of polished wood, pale, then dark, showed off the pieces beautifully as he set them one by one onto their allotted squares.

They had played chess together time out of mind, it is, after all, an ancient game. Boldness may triumph or cleverness win through, a perfect battleground for adversaries, the black and the white. Notes would appear, like cryptic messages in code: ‘P to Q 4’, ‘P to B 4’, or muttered syllables at the end of clandestine meetings and terse conversations on the telephone.

The bouts were elongated, stretching over years, time taken for each slow strategy. They matched each other pretty well, all told. No mercy shown, a struggle to the end each time. A substitute for what they were meant to be, perhaps. Or something much more subtle as they danced about each other, knights and bishops, kings and queens.

There had been no contact since that awful day when Crowley had requested the means of his destruction. The fury and dismay that he had felt then, remained with him . As did that shameful word _fraternise_ and the lie he had spoken about not needing his friend. He remembered the tears, hot in the quiet of his little room, and the silence that had persisted after that.

It had taken time to understand just what a rift had opened up between them. He strived to reconcile himself to solitude once more, finding only the truth of his dependency on the camaraderie of opposition.

He did his duty, vowed to hold his head up, be a proper Servant of the Lord. He went about the city, compensated, found joy dabbling in human delights: dancing, a little legerdemain. He blessed those souls who found themselves pariahs for the way they loved, counselled them, took them under his wings, identified with them. Through it all, he mourned, missing Crowley in a way he had never imagined he would. It was a lesson. For all his intransigence, he wasn’t stupid, he learned it well.

Once he had journeyed, all too human heart in his throat, to the deadened rooms where Crowley lived. There, a thready pulse of life in hibernation. He turned away, guilty and relieved.

Now this gift, out of nowhere. He unrolled the final piece from the silk that held the finely carved jade, placing the diminutive castle, proud, on its corner square. A rook from a crow.

The message, in the familiar jagged hand, brought new hope.

‘Angel, the game’s no fun without another player:

It’s your move.”


End file.
